Here I am again, with another chapter. I really appreciated the reviews. Thanks, guys! Now for more!

It was a Friday evening in late January when Greg Rippner came home in a very uncharacteristically good mood. The boys had finished their chores and were upstairs in their room playing Clue. Jackson looked up from his cards with a crooked smile on his face and opened his mouth to accuse Professor Plum of doing it in the Billiard Room with the Rope (and he would have been right) when the unmistakable wheeze of his father's car making its way up the driveway reached his ears.

"Oh no. Dad's home." He whispered, his blue eyes widening.

Richard, who had apparently not heard the car, had been staring fixedly at the cards he had clamped firmly in a small hand. Now he looked up, glanced at their closed door, and looked back at Jackson. Fear crept into his not quite as blue eyes.

"Does that mean we can't play anymore?" he asked in a tiny voice.

"Maybe if we push it under my bed, carefully so we don't knock off our pieces, we can come back to it at bedtime or something," he gave his brother a comforting smile, "Okay?"

The corners of Richard's mouth raised the tiniest bit, "Okay."

They did so, and shortly thereafter, Jackson heard the front door burst open. Greg Rippner was singing…singing! Jackson was confused. He'd never heard his father sing before. In spite of his confusion it gave him some hope that tonight wouldn't be as bad as normal. That was definitely a good thing.

He heard the front door slam closed and his father's heavy army boots clump down the hallway toward the living room where Sandra Rippner was undoubtedly slumped over the couch drunk.

Now he's going to start yelling at mom for never doing anything. And then he's going to start hurting her, then he's going to come up here and start hurting us. He almost whimpered at the thought but stifled it in his throat. He wanted to be brave for Richard.

But he heard no yelling. In fact, what he heard was quite surprising. His father started spewing forth an endless stream of excited babbling. Jackson tried but he couldn't quite understand what his dad was saying. When his father stopped, he heard a muffled "what?" come from his mother, and in a slightly irritated voice his father said, "Just dress warmly and get ready." That much Jackson did understand. The heavy boots his father always wore to work clumped back down the hallway and made their noisy way up the stairs and down the hall that led to their room. Jackson tensed, and though he didn't notice at the time, his brother did too.

"Jack! Rich!" Greg Rippner called as he opened the door to their room and crouched down with his hands on his knees to be closer to head-level with his two boys on the floor.

They only stared at him.

"Guess what!" more silence, "We're going on a little vacation!"

Richard gasped and replied in an awed voice, "Really?"

"Yes! A skiing trip. And do you wanna know why?"

"Why?" they both asked in curious unison.

"Because your daddy's being considered for a promotion. That's why!" A huge grin spread across his face and he stood up straight again and started laughing. When he was finished and pulled together again he said, "So get your winter gear together, we're heading out tonight." With that, he left them alone again. No beating. No shouting. Just the declaration of a vacation. They could definitely live with that.

When the door was closed, Jackson and Richard looked at each other with giant, surprised eyes for a moment. The moment following that moment they were instantly up and getting every ounce of heavy winter clothing they owned together in one spot. Jackson helped Richard collect his stuff. Next they grabbed their toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and some miscellaneous clothing, stuck it all into a bag they normally had stowed in their closet for such rare occasions and were ready to go.

Once everything was all set Richard looked at his brother with his nose all scrunched up in a very childish expression of bewilderment. "Jackson?" (Jackson had made his feelings about being called Jack clear to his little brother a long time ago)

He looked at his little brother, "Yeah?"

"What's the difference between a skiing trip and a reg'ler trip?"

Jackson laughed, "When you go skiing you get these big boards stuck to your feet and you slide down snowy hills on them. Sorta' like sledding except standing up."

"Oh…" Richard mused. "Have you ever gone skiing?"

"I think so but it was a long time ago," now it was his turn to scrunch his nose, "I don't really remember it much. I may have even been the same age as you when I skied."

"That was a long time ago."

The muffled voice of their father came from the master bedroom. "You boys ready yet?"

"Yes!" they both called immediately.

"Good!" their father responded in a pleased voice. They heard his heavy footsteps coming down the hall to their room again and once more the door opened with his tall, muscular figure in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light immediately behind him. He came in a step or two, bent down to retrieve their bag and with it firmly in his grasp, straightened to leave again. Halfway through turning to the door, he paused and looked at them with his eerily blue eyes.

"Don't forget to bring a snack or something with you. It's going to be a long drive."

And a long drive it was! They started out on their trip a half an hour after Greg Rippner told them to bring snacks, and drove all night. The boys polished off their snacks pretty quickly and dozed most of the rest of the way. Their mother just sort of sat their in the passenger seat, staring blankly ahead with her bloodshot eyes, and their father did his duty by driving, drinking coffee to keep awake. The dawn was just starting to tug on the edges of the eastern horizon when they finally reached the mountain. The Rippners checked in and went to their cabin, number 15.

Greg went to the bedroom to take a much needed nap. Sandra joined him, starting to feel the unpleasant effects of a hangover coming on, and the boys stared out the window onto the slopes where they saw little black dots zig-zagging toward the bottom. Occasionally one would glide close enough for them to see what these skiers looked like more clearly. Indeed they did have long boards attached to their feet, but what confused Richard was that some had only one board on both feet and some had a board on each foot. These last people also seemed to be only ones who got to have poles. These differences confused Richard, so he did what he always did when something confused him. He asked Jackson.

"Jackson?"

"Hmm?" his brother responded sleepily.

"Why do some of them have two boards attached their feet and some of them only have one?"

"Because some people like to ski down the hill and other people like to snowboard down the hill."

"Snowboard?"

"Yeah, they're the ones with only one board."

"Why do the people who ski get those pole things and the people who snowboard don't?"

Jackson opened his mouth to respond but stopped and creased his brow, "I don't really know, but If we get lessons, I'll ask for you, if you want."

"Lessons?"

"Yeah, if I remember anything from when I last skied, it was hard. Lessons make it easier to learn without falling flat on our faces so much."

"Oh… it sure doesn't look hard."

"Well those people know what they're doing. See that person?" he pointed to someone who was going way too fast and wiped out in a cloud of snow. Richard thought that was funny.

"Yeah," he giggled.

"We're probably going to be looking like him a lot."

"He's funny," they watched in silence for a moment as the man tried to get up, fell back down, and eventually succeeded in making it the rest of the way down.

"Well, I'm going to sleep a little bit more, okay?" Jackson broke the silence.

"Okay."

Jackson went, curled up on the couch and fell asleep, leaving Richard to watch the skiers and snowboarders in silence.

Several hours later, at 10 a.m. the Rippners were putting on their newly rented skis. Greg was amazingly happy, and Sandra was amazingly sober. They almost seemed like a normal family. Jackson had finally figured out the mysteries of putting on his ski boots and skis and was now helping Richard put on his. Richard looked like a deep-sea diver, bundled up like the next Ice Age was coming. Not a speck of skin was showing. After Jackson discovered that if he stuck his skis in a V-shape with them coming together in the front, he was more likely to stay put and taught this little tidbit to Richard, their father asked them if they were ready.

"Are we going to have lessons, daddy?" Richard asked excitedly.

"Lessons? Where did you get a stupid idea like that?" he looked at Jackson vindictively for a second and then looked back at Richard, "Ski instructors cost money. And besides, you'll pick it up in no time! Race you to the top."

Greg gave a mighty push on his poles and went gliding off. Their mother shrugged and followed him. Jackson looked sympathetically at Richard.

"I guess we're not going to find out why we get poles and snowboard people don't."

Together Jackson and Richards discovered the basics of maneuvering with their ski-poles for themselves: how to go, how to stop, and hardest of all, how to get up when they fell over. Eventually they were brave enough to try the ski-lift and see how they'd do on a real slope. Jackson had a map and figured out which ones were the easy ones (green) and which ones were the hard ones (black). They went on a lift that led to a green one.

The getting scooped up by the lift was surprisingly easy. When they reached the top, however, that was a whole different matter. Jackson got his skis onto the snow in good formation and might even have made it for the first time, but Richard accidentally stuck one of his skis on top of Jackson's and furthermore used Jackson to push away from the lift, consequently sending Jackson into a graceless sprawl into the snow. Richard then proceeded to tangle up his own skis and fall. They both proceeded with the polite process of scuttling away from the ski-lift so other people could get off and not fall over them, and got up with great difficulty. Jackson skied over to Richard who looked at him with large, apologetic eyes shielded by huge ski-goggles.

"I'm sorry," he said from underneath a thick scarf that covered his face.

"It's okay, you're not hurt are you?"

Richard shook his head fervently then looked down the slope for the first time. He uttered a gasp looked back at Jackson and fell over again.

"That's steep!" he cried.

"I don't think it's as steep as it looks. Do you want to try?"

Richard looked down at the slope again, gulped, and returned his scared eyes to Jackson. He gave his head a brisk shake. Then their parents arrived on the ski-lifts and skied up to them.

"I thought I'd find you two chickens up here. So, what are you waiting for? Why don't you go?"

Richard looked at Greg, "I'm scared, daddy. The hill's really big."

"What are you talking about? This is the easiest hill here! I think you just need a little push." He grabbed the back of Richard's coat and started to push him onto the steeper area of the hill. Richard started whimpering, steadily getting louder.

"No, Dad!" Jackson cried. "I don't think he's ready to go down yet!"

"Greg, maybe we should get them lessons," Sandra said quietly. "I mean Richard's only five. Remember how bad Jackson was at skiing when he was five?"

"Yeah, but he got the hang of it. Richard can too."

"After falling over half a dozen times and nearly giving himself a concussion on that patch hard-packed snow," she said softer still.

"But he didn't. Now, Richard? Be brave and try not to waver your feet and you'll be fine." Greg shoved the boy hard, and Richard went shrieking down the hill a ways before coming to a very abrupt halt by utterly wiping out. Jackson gave his father a look that could kill (a look he would perfect later in life) and went down after his brother. He managed to stop relatively close to the limp, gasping figure of his brother sprawled out on the ground and edge over to him.

"I wanna go home," Richard whimpered from his place on the ground. He was crying,"I don't like skiing."

Jackson extended his hand and helped his brother up, "Well, you'll get used to it. It just takes a while. You want some advice, keep your skis in that V-shape I told you about earlier. You'll go a lot slower."

Rich nodded, sniffed and started down the hill at a snails pace with his skies in a very wide V. He looked at Jackson as he realized that he was going down and not falling and smiled, "Hey look! I'm doing it!"

"Yes, you are! Look at you!" Jackson smiled.

Greg skied down and stopped next to Jackson, watching his younger son go. "Well that's way too slow. You have to go faster than that." He put out a ski-pole and gave his son another mighty shove.

"No!" Jackson shouted.

Richard went soaring down the hill again, way beyond control until he and a snowboarder collided harshly. Jackson couldn't believe his eyes. The snowboarder plowed into him from the side and Richard's right knee clearly went beyond where the joint allowed. Eventually the ski popped off but the damage had already been done. The snowboarder's board left the snow and he went down on top of Richard. The two slid down the hill a few feet before coming to a stop. Richard was screaming. The snowboarder got off of the boy and looked around confusedly. Jackson looked at his father with utter rage. One could not fathom how much he wanted to hit his father with his pole again and again until he was dead for what he'd just done.

"How could you do that! He was finally getting it!" he shouted, tears threatening to come out of his own eyes.

"Don't you talk to me that way, Jack! You don't ever use that tone of voice with me!"

"Richard could be really hurt out there, Dad! And it's your fault!" He started toward where his screaming brother was laying.

"Jack! Don't you dare use that tone of voice with me! I'm your father! You speak to me with respect!" his father was nearly in a rage.

Jackson stopped and turned around surprisingly nimbly for his lack of skiing experience. His eyes were blazing and for a moment you could see exactly what he would look like in the future. He looked just like his father.

"Don't call me JACK! I hate my name! People call me Jack the Ripper all the time and push me around at school because of it! My name is Jackson! Don't ever call me Jack again!" he turned around and continued down the hill.

His father looked surprised then angry again, "Don't think you won't be punished for this, boy!"

"I don't care!" He called back and didn't stop. His brother deserved more of his attention than his father.

Amazingly enough, his father never called him Jack again after that day.

All right. What did you think. I know, this chapter was a bit long, but other than that how'd you like it? Review please. 